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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Borderlands Boot Camp Experience

I spend this past weekend in BaltimoreMaryland
attending the 2013 Borderlands Writers Boot camp. I feel humbled and encouraged
at the same time. There are times you’ll think that your writing is good. Most
of the time you’re wrong. What’s important to realize is that every writer has
been here. You will get better, but you have to choose to write better.

The Borderlands Boot camp provided me with the means to
write better. In fact, the red marks on my manuscript are still bleeding. I
felt like the weekend slipped by in a blur of insider information, quality
feedback and critiquing, and introspection. Make no mistake, this was a writing boot camp.

Positives

- Everyone participating in the boot camp was friendly and
approachable, especially the veterans who made efforts to make sure the newbies
felt welcomed.

- The rooms were great and affordable.

- I walked away with a mountain-sized stack of feedback and
a clear To Do List.

- Made some great new writing friends.

Negatives

- The schedule didn’t leave a lot of time for us to
fraternize with our fellow Boot campers. Several veterans came a day early and
left a day later to get that time in with each other.

- The critiquing schedule didn’t work as several members
were in multiple sessions together and didn’t meet with a subset of other boot
campers.

- More up front disclosure would have been helpful. For
example, providing a sample of what the instructors think is a good critique,
or informing us of the specific areas the instructors were going to focus on
during the breakout sessions (plot, character, and POV).

The 2013 Borderlands Boot Camp was an amazing experience
that has allow me to see the
prerequisite level of writing skill required to be a successful writer. Where do I go from here? I need to absorb the feedback and critiques, specifically from two
perspectives: story/character and writing style.

Here’s what I've gathered from the
surface level comments and I’m sure I’ll be adding to these lists.

Thanks for the comment. I feel the same way. There's some conflicting comments that has made me realize that there's no right way. I'll have to weight it all with my own gut feel and see how it plays out.

SPIRIT QUEST

I'm currently looking for representation for SPIRIT QUEST, a 98,000-word Rural Fantasy set in Canada that weaves Ojibwe spirituality and legend into a fast-paced thriller, all filtered through a blue-collared protagonist.